Bookmark

Leather bindings
deep in shadow
on new pine library shelves.

Resting on Mo Follansbee’s pointy pipe,
Aunt Millie’s wedgewood teacup
tipped in gold
holds not only the silky string of a bookmark
but is a vessel for the deacon’s gaze.

Likened to Dumbledore’s pensive,
does it hold the old man’s memories
for safekeeping.

Or does it hold the theories
hidden in the volumes as they lean into each other
in hopes of revealing strategies
for the coming debate?

Or does that balance of
porcelain and light
simply hold,
for we the readers,
open the book ?